The DNA Committee

Committee Profile

Sonja Johnson is an economic development leader, who drives disparate ideas, strategies, resources, and budgets and unifies them to make things happen. With over 20 years’ experience in managing healthcare projects, destination brands and economic and capability development programs in Australia and the Middle East; she has been responsible for improvements to patient outcomes, double-digit increases to tourist and international student numbers, hundreds of millions of dollars in economic impacts and thousands of hours of capability development within communities.

As the Chief Executive Officer at Regional Development Australia Tropical North Inc., her role encompasses strategic planning, high-level stakeholder engagement and relationship management and oversight of large-scale infrastructure feasibility studies/business cases, for the Far North Queensland region.

She holds a Bachelor of Business degree from The University of Queensland and a post-graduate qualification in International Development from Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. She is a certified Project Management Professional (PMI), member of the Institute of Managers and Leaders (ANZ), certified Australian Economic Developer (EDA) and a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD).